![]() Sugar maple is widely planted as an ornamental or shade tree. Production of maple syrup is a multimillion dollar industry in the U.S. Maples were an important sweetener and source of winter nutrition for North American natives and early European settlers (see Uses in full entry). Maples are classified in their own family, Aceraceae, or in the larger group, Sapindaceae. The fruits are samaras (winged nutlets) that occur in pairs. ![]() ![]() Most trees are dioecious (either male or female) but some individuals are monoecious, bearing both male and female flowers. The leaves are deciduous, opposite, 5-11 cm long and wide, with 5 shallow, blunt or short-pointed lobes, edges coarsely toothed, dark green in summer, turning intensely red, orange, or yellow in fall. It has a dense, spreading crown, 25-40 m tall. The flowers appear to be wind-pollinated, but the early-produced pollen is important for Apis mellifera (honeybees) and other insects.Īcer saccharum, sugar maple, is a large tree native to North America it is the official State Tree of New York, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin (USNA 2011). Songbirds and woodpeckers, and cavity nesters nest in sugar maple. Porcupines consume the bark and can girdle the upper stem. In other regions, sugar maple has increased, possibly due to fire suppression (Potter-Witter and Lacksen 1993 2011).Īnimals that feed on sugar maple seeds, buds, twigs, and leaves include white-tailed deer, moose, snowshoe hare, red, gray, and flying squirrels, and numerous lepidopteran larvae and aphids. Sugar maple is declining in some northeastern forests (such as the Alleghenies), due to its sensitivity to acid rain and other pollution it may be replaced by opportunistic species in frequently cut or highly disturbed forests (Wikipedia, 2011). In 2002, it was one of the 10 most abundant tree species in the U.S. It occurs in rich, mesic (moist) woods but also grows in drier upland woods. Sugar maple is widespread and dominant or codominant in many northern hardwood and mixed mesophytic forests of the eastern United States.
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